


Three Suns Rising

by MarkoftheAsphodel



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Wars of the Roses AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-06 05:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14049987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkoftheAsphodel/pseuds/MarkoftheAsphodel
Summary: In the year 1461, the young Duke Sigurd of the White Rose, heir to the Yorkist cause, ends decades of unrest by claiming the English throne. He forges an unlikely alliance with his Scots neighbors to the north and England seems poised for a new era of peace and prosperity. Yet the naive young king doesn't grasp the machinations of his chancellor Lord Reptor, sometimes called the Kingmaker... or of his distant cousin Arvis of Lancaster, heir to the line of the Red Rose, who has the will to grasp the throne and the bloodline to warrant it. Nor do any of them have the full measure of one lovely young lady, living in obscurity, in whose veins run both the blood of Plantagenet kings and that of the sorceress Melusine.





	Three Suns Rising

**Author's Note:**

> I like the Wars of the Roses. I like Jugdral. Some liberties may be taken with both history and/or the game plot but please try to give me the benefit of the doubt just a little bit on the "Wait, WHAT?" moments. :)

_London, 1483_

“They have breached the Tower, Your Majesty.”

Such a juxtaposition, thought Arvis as he looked up into the old Bishop’s face, soft and free of guile. The greatest title ever claimed by a monarch of the English, the news that his last stronghold was lost. Not since the peasant uprising of a century before had such a thing transpired...

And those encircling Arvis now were no peasants armed with beaten ploughshares.

“I care not.” He spoke his own death sentence as dispassionately as once he'd condemned rebels and thieves.“See to yourself, Felipe.”

The bishop scuttled off in a flutter of robes and Arvis remained on his knees before the private altar in the Wakefield Tower. He was not, in truth, praying for his own soul or for that of his son or for anyone else. He was merely taking stock of the last vestige of the realm he'd commanded for nigh upon eighteen years. It came to this, white plaster adorned with triumphant red roses in a mockery of his fallen dynasty. The roses bloomed as brightly as the blood on Redmore Plain, just as the gilded lilies of a spurned claim to France were ever-fresh upon their azure field and the lions of England romped heedlessly on their ground of gules. These were the trappings of kingship left to him when all else had eroded. Arvis cast his eyes to the ceiling, where his personal badge and that of Deirdre looked down upon him.

He suspected the white hind would remain there upon the ceiling long after his own salamander wreathed in flame was pried off and consigned to an actual fire.

Arvis closed his eyes and waited in self-imposed darkness until heavy footfall upon the stairs let him know his hour had come. Even as the footsteps came to his private chamber he did not turn, did not rise, but remained on his knees watching the reflections in the golden altar-pieces. The first to enter proved a towering man clad in black, his visage made distinct by a mustache of the sort favored across the Channel. Gloucester, he thought. Sigurd’s loyal little kinsman, still loyal though no longer a child of scant consequence. The next entrant, almost as tall as Gloucester though not as powerfully built, and clad in the pure sky blue of St. Andrew's banner, could only be Albany, who’d already reddened his blade with the blood of God’s anointed north of Hadrian’s Wall. Then came another to round out the trio, smaller and slim and robed in regal violet, a vainglorious curtain of dark hair long past his shoulders and the glint of his sword plain even in the distorted reflection of golden plate. Brittany, thought Arvis. Three dukes, come to redeem England from three of his own sins.

He did not recognize the next man to enter, for his white clothing bore no hallmark of origin, no intimation of rank. A holy man of some stripe? Arvis did not think of this long, for at last the one for whom he'd been waiting stepped into view.

His youth showed in every movement, the carefree expression of a body not riven by age and pain, and his identity showed in every scrap of this clothing. Red and blue and gold, England’s heraldry made flesh. Seliph of the White Rose, Scion of Light, redeemer.

Arvis shut his eyes once more and waited. Seliph approached him cautiously, one step at time, each step so tentative they were almost buried in the sound of Gloucester shifting his large frame. Tentative, too, was the sound of a sword leaving its scabbard, and that scrape left Arvis disgusted in the first uncalculated emotion he'd known that day.

“Will you take an old man in the midst of his prayers, child?”

Arvis gave that a moment to sink in, then decided to look at his new captor. Deirdre’s face hung above him, and Arvis knew in his corrupted soul what he'd long acknowledged as a fact. He wondered if the moment of their meeting hurt Seliph as much as it was hurting him.

The boy sheathed his sword.

“Leave him to his prayers; the wretch has need of them,” said the young conqueror of England, and he left Wakefield Tower, the white-robed stranger following close behind him.

**To Be Continued ******

**Author's Note:**

> Dramatis Personae thus far:
> 
> Arvis, King of England and Lord of Ireland, heir to the line of the Dukes of Lancaster.
> 
> Seliph, son of King Sigurd VI and his wife Deirdre, heir to the Yorkist cause and rightful King of England, etc.
> 
> Oifey, Duke of Gloucester, young cousin of Sigurd and another potential claimant to the Yorkist cause
> 
> Finn, Duke of Albany, high-ranking noble of Scotland who *totally isn't related in any way to the actual royal house* no sir
> 
> Shannan, Duke of Brittany, thorn in the side of the French kings who rather want his land and patron of Seliph and the Yorkists


End file.
